The Roar of Andora: Book One

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Lost Prince and the Stag

Alone, travelling the forest equipped with nothing but the clothes on his back and the stolen axe, Aaron forbade himself to think of anything other than survival—then realized he knew nothing at all about surviving in the wild.

Dragging his numb and heavy legs up a hill Aaron couldn't help but smirk, thinking that all he had been taught growing up had been totally useless now that he didn't know anything about surviving. Countlessly reviewing in his mind what he had: the axe, his clothes; and thinking of what he knew about living off the land: making a fire, Aaron concluded that everything he'd learned from his academic instructors was a total waste. Eventually tiring to the point he collapsed onto all-fours to surmount the steep, latching on to roots and clawing the mud to hold on, he came to quickly realize that the earth was too wet to make a fire. Suddenly, Aaron had no survival skills at all. He didn't know how to construct traps to capture small game; let alone how to sever the skin and clean them; how to build shelter, how to discern poisonous mushrooms from ones that were not, the correct herbs to boil (if he even had a pot) to fend off any illness, and he was certainly dead if he came across any blood-thirsty animal. Even with his only tool, the hunter's axe, considering the sleeplessness and lack of any nutrition—his body strength was useless. The only survival skill Aaron had, and the only one he used, was the motivation to keep each foot moving in front of the other.

The cloud-covered sky made gauging the time of day impossible. He tried to reckon when he might have first regained consciousness when on the horse's back—but that was, too, impossible to guess. The passing moments could have accounted to hours. The passing of time became entirely irrelevant. There was no time. He could have, for all he known, been walking for a lifetime.

"Must," he uttered in a thin voice. "Must. Keep. Walking." His knee trembled. "Must. Keep—" on his next step his knee then collapsed into the mud. Throwing his hands down to the ground, Aaron looked up to the top of the slope. "Moving—" he forced himself up "—Forward."

Aaron kept on hiking up the steep for another few paces until he stepped on a moss-covered rock. Slipping face-first into the mud. Bracing his hands beside his head, holding himself flat on the sodden forest floor for a long time.

It was only then that his stomach grumbled, reminding him of his hunger. Elongated against the ground, Aaron could feel how close his navel was to touching his spine. Drowsiness and hunger drew their heavy curtain down on him. A light rain began to fall. Tattering the branches high above.

The sound of scattering leaves woke him, urgently bringing about the panic from the last time he was caught off-guard by a shuffling in the forest. Jolting his head up, examining his immediate surroundings for an unseen threat, and finding nothing, the fear that gripped his body kept him flat against the mud. Scanning every integer within range. Imagining that at any given moment he would feel an arrow piercing his flesh, almost hoping that he would be struck to end the horrible anticipation.

The shuffling re-emerged.

Careful to not even dare move his neck, Aaron shifted his gaze in the direction of whatever it was that moved—and saw a lone deer.

The stag stretched its neck and stared directly at him. Expecting the creature to at any second carry on its path, Aaron stared right back into its large black eyes. The stag didn't budge. A warm wind stirred and in about the instance of its wake a wet leaf slapped his cheek. Startling him, Aaron cried out in shock and rolled on his side. Pinching the damp ends, he pealed the leaf off his face—convinced the sudden gesture scared the deer away—Aaron looked back to where the creature stood, and, to his amazement, was still there.

"What's this fucking deer's problem?" Aaron said, turning away and then heard a thick exhale and the clash of the deer's hoof. Raising his torso off the ground, he looked at the deer. "What do you want?" The creature cried in the eerily haunting call deer's cry in, and then soundlessly spun and dashed away.

Feeling foolish before he even said it, Aaron called out, "Wait!" then lifted to his knees, pushed off, and chased after the animal further up the steep and deeper into the forest.

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